


accidentally, like a martyr

by Hyb



Category: The Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Always a Different Sex, Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Vampire Slayer, Buffy the Vampire Slayer References, F/F, smut and thangs
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-02-26
Updated: 2015-02-26
Packaged: 2018-03-25 12:04:37
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,408
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3809740
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hyb/pseuds/Hyb
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Rick Grimes isn't the first Slayer, and she won't be the last. Daryl questions her own vocation.</p>
            </blockquote>





	accidentally, like a martyr

September is creeping cold at the edges in Memphis. A hard winter coming on hungry. Daryl's breath escapes in dragon plumes at night.

Daryl smokes away the last dark hour before dawn with her feet dangling in an open grave. The digging never gets easier. The ache sets into her shoulders, her forearms numb. Sweat turns clammy, her shirt plastered to skin, and she waits.

The insistent buzz has her coughing, startled, before she digs out her phone. In black shadow the grave rustles.

“What are you doing up, old man?”

“I did not raise you to sass, young lady,” Hershel slings back, absent. There's the whisper of papers shifting, the hard one-two step of his new leg. “I need you in Athens. Fast as you can get down there.”

“I can do that.” Muffled, she hears fabric ripping below. The first tentative scrape of fingernails on wood. “Where's the fire?”

“The university. You need to find a girl, keep an eye on her until I can join you. Maggie, make this contraption cooperate.”

There's the sweet-edged tartness of Maggie's reply, just out of Daryl's reach. She tries to count the months. Six, maybe seven, since she heard Maggie and Beth sing. Broken Arrow to Sedalia to Detroit. Columbus to Little Rock to Memphis. A host of forgotten one horse towns between, names smudged over in her mind. Motel to graveyard to all night diner and back again. Maybe a pretty waitress between, if she plays her cards right.

“Better not be another slime demon. Not it, I'm tapping out,” Daryl says. “How do you even find this crap?” She tamps down the curl of unease in her gut.

“Grimes, Rick Grimes,” Hershel announces as if he hadn't heard. “Maggie is sending you a picture.”

“Hell, you know my phone's shit for those.”

“Language,” Hershel says. So distracted, unlike himself, that Daryl bites her tongue on asking.

Wood splinters. Daryl stands, kicking the blood into her legs. “Hold up.” Drops the phone into the grass. A clumsy hand scrambles at the edge of the grave. Gleaming eyes rise up with it. Soon as it catches on Daryl, the dear departed Lloyd Hudgins shifts. Its brow clenches into the demon's ugly snarl, fangs protruding.

Daryl gives it a minute to shuffle up, arms outstretched. When it's half exposed she stomps on its reaching hand. Plunges her knife through the base of the skull. Won't kill a vamp, not like beheading, but its clammy hands fly up to the wound. While it's howling into the dirt, Daryl punches her stake through the back of its funeral suit. Straight to the heart.

The vamp explodes into a cloud of ash, that gasp like a thousand faraway screams.

Daryl hefts up the phone to Hershel and Maggie's whispers, soft and troubled.

“So how the hell do I find _Rick Grimes_?” she asks.

  
  
  
  
  


Daryl lounges on the bleachers until the sun itches her shoulders, then swings down to the shade beneath. Georgia summer clings on and she'd be lying if she said she didn't miss it. The green soaked air, the humidity, possum sized mosquitoes and all.

A reedy boy sidles up to squint at her, ask if she's got any pot. Daryl blows smoke in his face and doesn't blink until he cringes and darts away, sandals slapping. Kids these days.

There's more than thirty thousand students, by Maggie's measure. Beth says field hockey is the place to start, from wherever she gleans this stuff on the computer. So Daryl waits. She's thirsty for a spell, but that fades, and the gnaw of hunger with it.

The only photo she has is black and white, a yearbook head shot dark on her cracked screen. Some girl with a big blunt nose and straight white teeth. Erica Grimes. There's a quote beneath, one Daryl can just make out if she squints. It says, things that were hard to bear are sweet to remember. It doesn't annoy her any less the second time she reads it, or the fifty-second.

A loud cluster arrives. Not one Rick Grimes among them. They hurl a frisbee around, leaping with such enthusiasm that Daryl tires just watching. Leave in a cloud of chatter, all unknowing of their audience. Daryl turns her face up when she needs to blink the daylight from her eyes, rotating her neck to stay awake. Under the bleachers she peruses an unauthorized history in permanent marker and jagged knifepoint. Initials and slurs, hearts and petty hatreds. Daryl wonders how many of them held fast to their vows. How many are already dead. 

When the sun has sketched an arc across the sky, three figures amble in. Just smudges from afar, drawing closer, details leaping clear.

Daryl assesses the big hoss first, habitual threat awareness. Bull-necked with a thatch of black hair, dense with muscle, a bowlegged swagger. There's a lissom girl in the middle, pale as cream, a delicate silver chain around her neck flaring molten bright. The girl on the left has a stick slung over her shoulder. The stubbed end more like a golf club than the hockey sticks Daryl remembers. Hazy snapshots, a shivering cold rink and her brother's beer laced shouts.

Rick Grimes, alright. In color she's sun gold, bronzed dark over her bare arms. Broad plain features, a high forehead with a mess of dark curls. Georgia red shorts catch high across her legs; with each stride the heavy muscles of her thighs leap into stark relief. Good sprinter, Daryl thinks. Could be worse odds, if shiny college girl has to run for her life.

Big boy and the wispy girl sprawl careless at the far side of the pitch from Daryl's lookout. The boy rummages in a bag and lobs a white ball. Grimes hooks it right out of the air like a hawk swooping, nails it to the grass so fast Daryl scarce sees her move.

The disquiet she's been nursing roars to life, teeth in her entrails.

Hershel picks up on the first ring.

“Y'all coming?”

“Packing fast as we can. Did you find her?” Hershel sounds ragged, breathless.

“Looking right at her,” Daryl says. The air in her lungs is cold, sharp as frost. “You gonna tell me why I'm here?”

The pause stretches. The scraping and stepping fades behind the rattle of a screen door. Daryl can see Hershel on the porch. The sun dappled hills, the lowing of cattle.

“The council believes Miss Grimes is the new Slayer. I've been appointed Watcher,” he says at last.

Shadows swim at the edge of Daryl's vision. Muffled shouts drift from beyond the bleachers' shade. The white ball is nowhere in sight. Grimes has a hand shading her eyes, stare locked on the horizon. The stick is slack at her side. Her friends leap to their feet, pointing. The boy is a cartoon of disbelief, hopping in place.

“Andrea's dead.” Not a question, is it. “What happened?”

The air whistles out of Hershel's lungs. “Best if we discuss that later.”

All the cursing and screaming in the world won't do Daryl any good. Useless protests claw at her throat. She was my friend. Did you even think to tell me, you old bastard. Andrea was strong, she thinks in a hot furious rush. But strong wasn't enough. It never is.

“I'll watch her,” Daryl grits out. She hangs up, and she doesn't scream.

  
  
  
  
  


Watching never was Daryl's style. Behind her shades, her eyes are one dry sleepless ache.

The campus sprawls greedy, all red brick and fucking pretentious white portico columns. Century old oaks tower between the halls, lacing a green canopy overhead. Fair cover for shadowing Grimes. Tracking deserts her in places like this, ground beaten into anonymity by the human throng. Daryl snags a half eaten tray of nachos and a newspaper from the open air tables outside the cafeteria. Keeps her eyes on Grimes' straight spine all the while. When she splits off from her friends, Daryl is ready. Winds aimless through the trees, don't fuck with me nonchalance in full force.

The chips are soggy, the cheese is tacky cold and it's heaven on her empty stomach.

Grimes disappears into a dormitory. Daryl stalks the perimeter, cutting a swathe through the slow ambling students and their stares on her back.

Hershel would say she needs to put more effort into passing. Daryl never paid him much mind. Her boots are steel toed and conceal a switchblade easy, they can stomp a skull in a pinch. And she's not about to smother in long sleeves just to cover up her scars and put the sheep at ease.

Daryl clocks one entrance with a bored looking coed behind the desk. Two corners with stairwells that lead to exits, no keys or scanners for reentry. Has to hedge her bets, snag a bench in the shade with the clearest view. Daryl smokes away the hours with the newspaper folded unread in her lap. The echoes of fury shiver her fingertips. In her periphery the knotted tree roots seem to shift, crooking claws, dark edged scythes. Daryl bites her cheek until she tastes blood.

  
  
  
  
  


Patchwork cloud scuds overhead, bursts of moonlit illumination. Pools of velvet dark like film noir. In her dizzy mind's eye, Daryl sees Rita Hayworth lounge against a door. Poured from silver, her cigarette traces a ladder. Almost misses the girl when she reappears, Grimes' long legs eating up the ground so quick Daryl wheezes to follow.

Has to dog her closer in the gloom, Grimes' achingly white shirt a beacon. At last Daryl is granted a reprieve. She perches on a low garden wall across the street, gulps down air, and keeps the frat house in sight. Brassy Greek letters, ridiculous columns two stories high. Bay windows blazing bright and rattling with bass. The porch light is a poor glow, but she knows Grimes when she steps out. That lion's mane crisp, full as a halo. 

Truth is, the frat's overstocked with libations, and Daryl's throat is dry.

She cuts a switchback path up to the porch so that she arrives from out of Grimes' sight. Stalks to the far railing, the unattended cooler. The piss light beer goes down crisp in one long swallow. Belated, Daryl gulps half a bottle of water to match. Rummages in the melting ice for a lone bottle of Bud. The cold glass is reassuring under her fingers.

“Thirsty?” Grimes has a throaty voice, lax with drink. Easy like the blithe ignorant are, sometimes, the ones who don't know fear. Trust too easy, talk to strangers. She's tracing her thumb over the edge of a plastic cup, watching Daryl plain.

“Always am, when the beer's free,” Daryl shrugs. Lights up in a thoughtless quicksilver flash, offering the pack.

“Nah. Thanks.” Warm still, easy. Daryl wonders how many days, hours remain before that changes forever. “You don't go here, do you?”

“That obvious?” Daryl snorts, plumes out a sweet cloud.

“I don't think blending is your style.” Grimes edges closer, leans against a column. She's watchful, scanning Daryl down to her boots. Maybe there are decent instincts under all that hair after all. “Shouldn't be. I like your- look,” she continues, laughs a touch bashful. Taps a fingertip over the braided leather and charms weighing down Daryl's wrist. Shy, but that curl of a grin is inviting as a hand on her leg. “I'm Rick.”

Daryl is just stunned enough not to laugh. Girls next door going for the bit of rough, it's like fucking clockwork. Sure ain't her looks. She never was going to grow up pretty, scarred with a face twisted mean as old leather.

Grimes is close enough that Daryl can smell her soap. The first bloom of sweat gathering at her throat. Daryl shoves down her appreciation for neck breaking thighs and fast.

“Daryl.” She dips a stiff nod, retreats a pace. Safer waters, no fresh scrubbed college girls in reach. Grimes is biting her lip. Daryl thinks she looks a shade rosier in the dim. Like she's going to apologize for putting all that warm unmarked skin on offer.

“You having the dreams yet?” Daryl snaps, cuts through the mess Grimes is spinning.

Grimes goes stiff, a moment's soft mouthed shock before her eyes narrow to pinpricks.

“Think I heard you wrong,” she says, firm.

“Nah,” Daryl exhales, satisfied. That's right, little girl, don't look at me like I'm your friend. “Tell me about your dreams, Rick _Grimes_. You been seeing shit before it happens? Or you skipping straight to the blood and fire?”

The heel of a hand in her sternum comes blinding fast. Knocks the air from her lungs. If Grimes leans any more weight in she'll crack bone and she doesn't even know.

“You tell me who you are,” Grimes says. She's dead cold now, something stirring under the ice. Doesn't blink. “And what you know about my dreams.”

“Got stronger, too. Right? Ease up before you break something you can't pay for.” Grimes crushes her hand down harder. Daryl grunts, feels every vertebra grind into the window at her back. “Ease _up_ , girl,” she coughs. “Came out of nowhere, yeah? You ain't even told your friends. You're strong as an ox and you don't know why.”

Grimes jolts back as if burned. Her breath is loud. Wounded. “Think you can vague that up for me some more?” She snaps. There's the fear. The flashing white edges of her eyes.

“Giving the speech ain't my specialty,” Daryl shrugs. “One girl to fight the vampires, forces of darkness. Blah, blah. Congrats, you're the Slayer. There ain't a tee shirt in it for you.”

“Says who. You?” Grimes' fists furl tight at her sides.

“Council. Bunch of puffed up dickheads, for the most part. But they know the omens. Don't look at me, girlie. I'm just babysitting you til the grown ups get here. Ought to be set up at that library, next day or so. Ask for Hershel Greene.”

"Why should I?"

Daryl sucks her teeth, mirthless. "How bad you wanna live?"

Rick shivers in place for an instant. Long enough for Daryl to think, fucking hell don't – and she bolts. Bounds over the railing and Grimes hits the ground streaking, a breakneck greyhound sprint out of sight.

Daryl swears and knocks back a swallow of beer she doesn't taste. The dead are easier than the living will ever be.

  
  
  
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A million thanks to anyone willing to wind this strange road with me! 
> 
> Feedback and concrit are endlessly appreciated. I wanted to post this story in installments so I could take your thoughts into consideration along the way.
> 
> You can jump to my other Walking Dead fic [here](http://archiveofourown.org/works?utf8=%E2%9C%93&commit=Sort+and+Filter&work_search%5Bsort_column%5D=revised_at&work_search%5Bfandom_ids%5D%5B%5D=205859&work_search%5Bother_tag_names%5D=&work_search%5Bquery%5D=&work_search%5Blanguage_id%5D=&work_search%5Bcomplete%5D=0&user_id=Hyb) or find me on [tumblr](http://h-yb.tumblr.com/)


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